Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg Read Free Book Online Page A

are certain agreed-upon percentages at this point. On the East Coast 20 percent has become the norm but is still considered a good tip; less than 15 percent of the total bill implies that your service was lacking in some way (not liking the waitress’s hairdo or eye makeup shouldn’t really be a factor); 10 percent or less is just insulting and implies that you have been grievously wronged by your server. I have heard many servers say that they’d rather get nothing than a 5 or 10 percent tip. At least that way, they can lull themselves into believing that the diner just forgot.
    There are some who steadfastly maintain that tipping is a form of extortion and refuse to do it on principle. In 1905, a large group of traveling salesmen revolted against the policy of tipping. Calling themselves the Anti-Tipping Society of America, this group actually managed to eliminate tipping in several states until anti-tipping laws were declared unconstitutional in 1919. Currently, there are a couple of national organizations that have selected tipping as their focus. Tippers International, founded in the late 1960s, is one such group. It seeks to educate members on how much to tip based on the particulars of the ser vice. Those who join receive report cards they can leave at the table, grading the server’s job performance and explaining the amount of the tip left. While this ratings system is probably preferable to a message of displeasure scrawled across a credit card slip, where the manager and owner can view it later and possibly discipline or fire the waiter, most servers still take umbrage at being told how to do their jobs by someone outside the business.
    WANT (Wages And Not Tips) is a much more extreme group whose members leave business cards with their checks stating that they don’t believe in tipping. According to this group, employers should pay their employees fairly and spare the customer the agony of trying to calculate and then fork over a tip. Get a life, I say. And watch your back on the way out of the restaurant because those who don’t tip can expect unique reper cussions from those they stiff.
    I’ve had some bad tips in my career as a waitress. I have occasionally been left with several pennies on the table (the universal symbol for “We hated you”) as well as being left with nothing at all. There isn’t much one can do in the face of this kind of disaster. Part of the problem is that it all seems so personal (and often it is). In the places I’ve worked, management rarely backs up the waitstaff, nor does the waitstaff expect such support very often. In most restaurants, middle managers, drunk with what little power they have, make a lower annual salary than the waiters they police and really couldn’t care less if a waiter gets stiffed. Usually, the recipient of a particularly bad tip can expect a gathering of his coworkers wherein everybody mourns the state of the world and curses the exiting diners.
    In my restaurant, servers are expressly forbidden to demand a tip or even question the discretion of the guest. I have there fore witnessed some very colorful curses from my waiter friends upon the discovery of a bad tip. One particularly awful night, a waiter launched into a five-minute spiel in Italian, complete with hand gestures, which he punctuated by spitting on the ground. When I asked him what he had said, he told me he had wished a curse on the customer that involved the guest getting into his car, becoming lost and disoriented in the fog, and then plunging off a cliff into the ocean. He also wanted the customer to die a long, slow, extremely painful death and if, by chance, the cus tomer had any children, they too should meet a similar fate. It was so detailed and so vehement, I actually got chills. Why would anyone risk this kind of vitriol? I asked myself. Could it really be worth saving a couple of dollars?
    Occasionally, a waiter driven insane by his job will follow a customer out of the